NBA veteran Jason Collins, shown when he played for the Boston Celtics, is the first male pro athlete in American team sports leagues to come out as gay.
Michael Dwyer, AP

Written by

Maria Puente, USA TODAY

Today there's only one group of celebrities in America with no openly gay people: male movie stars.

Until Monday, there were no male American athletes active in any of the four major professional team sports who had come out. Then Jason Collins, a 12-year NBA veteran, became the first, announcing he was gay in a first-person essay in Sports Illustrated. ...